Gravity Well Dungeon

Typical r

oom design

In the middle of nowhere there’s a well. Just a normal well from the outside. But if you could x-ray the earth beneath it you would find a twisted gravity tower built around the well by a powerful wizard, but not as powerful to build it without any pre-existing structure being there as a skeleton for the magic building. Usually they’re made as some sort of prisons, but really it’s up to you.

T he stairs are made up this way so that they can be used both with twisted or normal gravity

(but don’t tell the players!)

T here isn’t

a door i

n every r

oom

T his is le

ading to

the low

er floor

but real

ly is the

upper

How many floors and therefore enemies are in this tower is up to you. It is also up to you to make this dungeon appealing to your PCs. Fill it with unique loot! Once the PCs are teleported here (or come by it by other means) just tell them they're in a pretty mundane room, if they look at the ceiling tell them there's something strange about it, nothing more for now. T hey will start at the bottom of the tower (wich is the upper part using normal gravity).

As typical hints for the PCs to let them discover they're in a twisted-gravity tower attached to a well I suggest to make some water leak out from one side of the room, going upside-down as long as it touches the wall; you can place some sort of amphibious monster at the top (the bottom) of the tower, where the leaking water stand stagnant. One other hints may be some footprints on the ceiling (although I find it too obvious).

Enemy suggestion for the tower: Mutant spider-rat!For an easier twisted-gravity combat management.

In the last floor or the tower there will be a niche in the wall with a clay golem inside. T he golem will perceive the PCs but won't communicate by any means. It's seated, cross legged, upside-down. Fluctuating over its head there's a crystal, if touched it will fall and break thus twisting gravity back to normal. T he ceiling is not so high, so the PCs won't get hurt falling. At this point the water will start leaking faster, flooding the tower starting from the bottom. Now the PCs will have to escape in order to survive.T he golem

It's up to you whether to make the PCs find some sort of pickaxes to break the side of the wall where the water is leaking or not to. Anyway the PCs will have to escape swimming through the well.

by Andrea Batacchi